


The Trouble With Snowmen

by tenscupcake



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:40:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5412008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenscupcake/pseuds/tenscupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first snowy night of the season, the Doctor and Rose discover a few ways to enjoy the frigid weather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble With Snowmen

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a gift for [timelordinvictus](http://timelordinvictus.tumblr.com) over on tumblr as part of the [dwsecretsanta](http://dwsecretsanta.tumblr.com) 2015! This lovely person requested Tentoo/Rose smut and also mentioned they enjoy fluff. So, naturally, this is a combination of the two. It's quite festive, and it's a little bit insufferably fluffy... I hope it's what you wanted! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, all that, hope you enjoy it <3

Rose climbs out of her shiny black sedan, slings her heavy bag over her shoulder, and reaches inside to lift a stack of paperwork from the passenger seat. A week ‘off’ from work doesn’t mean there isn’t loads of electronic filing to do. She winces at the freezing metal on her fingers as she grabs the roof to steady herself, and backs away to slam the door with her foot. Of course, the first day it snowed this year had to be the day she forgot to wear her gloves.

It snows more in this universe. Back home it snowed maybe once or twice a year, but here, it’s more like once a week in the winter months. She doesn’t much fancy being cold, and it’s hell to drive in icy conditions, especially in the dark. But she takes in the sight of the frosted rooftops and windowsills of deep maroon buildings, lampposts capped with miniature mountains of white fluff, barren trees weighed down with it. Fresh flakes gently descend through the still night air, and the deep navy sky is sprinkled with dim white stars, and suddenly she can’t help but be thankful for the snow and the cold. It’s beautiful.

Mashing down buttons on her keys until she hears the double chirp of the lock, she heads for home.

She’s just about halfway through the cement walkway through the would-be-grassy atrium in the center of their complex when she sees something sticking out of the snow up ahead. It looks brown and yellow, through the soft golden glow of lanterns lining the open space. Figuring she’s safe enough in her water-resistant boots, she cuts through the snow rather than staying on the path.

She comes upon a crude circle of thinned snow about twenty feet in diameter, as though someone had scooped most of it up, blades of dead brown grass poking through the white in every direction. In the center of the clearing sits a lumpy pile of snow with the out-of-place colors that had caught her eye from afar. All stuffed into the wet pile are a banana, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that look exactly like the Doctor’s snapped in two, and – she gasps aloud – the Giorgio Armani tie that she’d gotten him for his birthday. (It was the first one she’d been able to find exactly like his favorites from the wardrobe stock in the TARDIS, the brown one little abstract blue squares.)

Heart in her throat, she pulls the tie and broken glasses out of the snow and makes a sprint for their building. Working at Torchwood has given her no tolerance for practical jokes, and the Doctor is well aware of that. He wouldn’t pull something like this. And he never texted her when he arrived home today…

She stumbles in the thick snow a few times, but adrenaline pushes her forward and keeps her from falling completely until she reaches the stairs, propelling herself up the three flights to their floor.

The door is unlocked and she bursts through, dropping all of her things and the Doctor’s found belongings in the entryway, ready to scour the flat for him.

But the Doctor in the kitchen, standing at the range with his back turned to her, and his head turns at the raucous noise of her entrance.

“You’re home!” he announces with a bright smile before turning back to the stove.

“I’m making us dinner. Figured you’d be frozen once you got home! Can you believe it, a proper meal? I feel like we’ve eaten nothing but chips or beans on toast for dinner for weeks. You didn’t have to go outside much today, did you? I saw you forgot your gloves on the couch this morning.”

She doesn’t respond, too filled with relief that he’s perfectly fine and confusion as to why she found his sopping tie and broken glasses in the snow outside their flat. She closes the door numbly, and her senses finally start to work again. The warm, close air of the flat defrosts her fingers and face, the smell of meat and potatoes and spices swirls through her nose, and Michael Buble’s voice croons from the Doctor’s laptop where it’s perched on the dining table, singing a soothing if off-tempo rendition of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You.’

“Rose?” The Doctor turns around again. “Everything all right?” He looks concerned.

“Why didn’t you text me when you got home?” she asks.

“I…” He looks dumbfounded, his forehead wrinkling with confusion. “Wanted to surprise you. Are you all right?” He asks again.

“Yeah, I jus’…” she reaches down to pick up the wet tie and broken glasses from the floor, “found these in the snow outside, thought somethin’ happened.”

The Doctor wheezes in a breath and abandons his station over the pots and pans on the stove, rushing to the front door to take the items from her hands.

“Someone ruined my snowman?” His face pales as he stares down at his hands, his tentative crestfallen look becoming properly, thoroughly crushed. “I worked so hard on it.”

“You made a snowman?” she asks, skeptical, but he doesn’t hear her.

“Who would do this?” he goes on.

“I dunno, maybe that horrible kid on the first –”

“And this is my favorite tie,” he whinges, not hearing any of her responses, despair carving itself deeper into his features as he lets it roll down out of his hand, sending a few droplets splashing to the dark wood floor.

But suddenly the whole thing makes sense. He’d _put_ his tie and glasses on the snowman he’d made (and probably used a banana for a nose, since they never did have carrots in the house), but someone had ruined it before she got home.

“Why’d you put a designer tie on a mound of wet snow?”

“I wanted you to know it was mine.” He looks up at her, finally, and he looks so sad that she almost laughs.

“’S all right. You can fix it up with the sonic, yeah? Or we can always buy you a new one. ‘M just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Of course.” He shakes his head to clear the somber disappointment from his face. “I’m sorry, love. I was hoping it’d make you smile, not scare the pants off you.” He smiles, properly, and even now it steals some of the air from her lungs, and she can’t help but return it eagerly.

“It’s been such a busy week,” he groans out as he wraps her in a bear hug that lifts her feet off the floor and she giggles and swings her legs through the air. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” she mumbles against his shirt.

He kisses her when he sets her back down, soft and chaste.

“Right, then, get that snowy coat off! Dinner’s in just a tick!” And with that he rushes back to the food on the stove.

“Thought you said you’d have mounds of grading to do tonight?” she calls, slipping off her boots.

“I got a good start. I can finish up tonight, maybe in the morning. I’m quick.”

He’s wearing those pinstriped brown trousers she bought him their first week in this universe, the ones he claimed he didn’t need but that she knew he did. The stripes don’t have the baby blue tone they had before, and he doesn’t have a jacket to match, but they’re close enough to the original pair that she gets nostalgic whenever he wears them. It takes her back to the turquoise glow of the console and holding his hand and running for their lives on distant planets.

She’d never tell him this, of course, but sometimes they make her sad. Long for the days when they traveled the stars. Right now, though, they just serve as a powerful reminder that she made it back to him. Her Doctor. For years the skinny brown pinstripes were something she fantasized about every day and dreamed of every night but never thought she’d see again.

He’s wearing a dark blue Oxford with them today, several buttons are open at the collar (since apparently, he’d taken his tie off hours ago) and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And watching the way the tight trousers hug his bum as he reaches into the oven, it’s hard to feel anything but joy (the Christmas music certainly helps). Her heart swells with love and gratitude for the second chance they’ve been given.

With her outer layers removed, she dashes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist, poking her head under his arm and surveying the assortment of food in various stages of preparation around the kitchen to either side.

“So, what’s cooking?” she asks, just so she can hear him introduce it all.

“I’ve got roast chicken, I’ve got potatoes, I’ve got steamed cauliflower…” He points to each item as he goes. “ _Aaaand_ your favorite from last winter, butternut squash apple _bisque_.” He draws out the name of the soup like he’s revealing the name of his latest cutting-edge invention.

He takes the lid off a pot on the stove, and a rush of buttery, cinnamony steam billows from the bright orange soup. It smells heavenly.

“Looks delicious.”

\---

“So, what do you say we go out and make a new snowman?” she says as she finishes the last of her wine. Now that she’s warm and properly nourished (and the Doctor’s tie and glasses are dry and good as new again thanks to the sonic), she feels like she can handle another excursion outside.

“I say…” He takes one last final gulp of his own glass, and raises one eyebrow to the ceiling as he sets it down. “Race you downstairs.”

She actually gets out of her chair first, but he’s so lithe on his feet that he reaches the entryway first. He manages to throw her boots down the hallway and her coat onto the far side of the couch before she can get to either, and gets his own shoes and puffy winter coat on in just a few short seconds. He’s out the door before she can sit down to pull her boots on. She grabs an ugly scarf she never wears from the coat rack to dress their snowman rather than soil the Doctor’s nice Armani tie again.

By the time she steps outside and peers over the railing of the walkway, the Doctor is already standing in the wreckage of his earlier snowman, his brown, furry hood almost completely obscuring his face. He puts his hands up to his mouth when he sees her, and she notices that they’re bare.

“I forgot my gloves!” he yells.

“Hah!” she shouts back, pointing down at him.

“Pretty please!”

“Nuh-uh! ‘S what you get for throwing my stuff!”

His arms fall to his sides and he stands there for a beat, thinking, before he yells, at the top of his lungs, “I love you!”

She can see his bright white teeth from three floors up.

Sighing in defeat, she turns on her heel and ducks inside to pick up his gloves. He went so long without saying that, he thinks he can use it to his advantage now. (Well, he can, she’ll just never tell him that in so many words. He never uses it maliciously, after all.) Stepping outside again, she pulls her own hood over her already reddening ears and heads for the stairs, not bothering to lock the door behind her, since they’ll only be just outside.

She tosses the gloves in his face once she’s within the distance.

“Fine, yes, I deserved that,” he mutters as he bends to pick them up.

“Right, then! Snnnowmaaaan!” he enunciates the word into the night with his characteristic enthusiasm as he pulls them on and starts to form the useless lump of snow at his feet into a more round shape. She goes to gather some more armfuls of it from the perimeter of the circle, and crouches down to start forming hers into a smaller ball next to his.

It’s hard and wet in her hands, rather than soft and fluffy like she was hoping for. The temperature must not be quite cold enough for the smaller powdery flakes to hold (though it feels freezing enough through her too-thin trousers). For a while they just gather more snow and form their spheres to make their snowman’s body, shoes and hands crunching snow as they walk and sculpt.

He helps her lift her smaller one onto his bigger one, and they both laugh at how lopsided and lumpy he is. They circle around his body for a few minutes trying to even out the bumpiness and make him stand up straight, but the awkward squatting position it requires combined with the frosty air eventually starts to take its toll.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Rose groans.

“Neither can I,” the Doctor agrees, and they both break into laughter, warm puffs of breath whitish against the backdrop of dark buildings and walkways.

“Ohh,” he groans as he gets to his feet. “Blimey, it’s cold.” He extends a hand down to her, and she takes it gratefully and pulls herself upright. As they both shake out the pins and needles in their feet and calves, Rose takes a second good look at their creation.

“I think we made it worse.”

“What?” the Doctor whinges as he looks at it from the higher angle. “How did that happen?”

Their snowman’s first two segments look a lot more like vertical ellipsoids than spheres. The Doctor frowns and scratches the back of his head (or, in this case, coat).

“Sod it, ‘s freezin’, let’s just get his head on.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Doctor replies quickly, stooping down to pick up some more snow. They make it into a rough ball on top of the previous one, and try to make it more spherical.

“I swear the one I made earlier turned out better,” he mumbles, almost like he’s blaming her help for their 3-dimensional artistic failure.

“Sure.”

“It did!”

“Mmhm.”

Squeezing his current handful of snow in one hand, he opens it over her head and smushes it onto the top of her hood. Tiny snowballs rain down in front of her face and onto the ground as it falls apart atop her head.

He just shrugs and purses his lips when she scowls at him, and returns to molding the partial snowball head with his hands. She takes the snow in her hands and chucks it at his arm with a slap, and it, too, crumbles to the ground. His entire body goes still, eyes narrowing, and she can see the gears turning, deciding how to retaliate. His hands close around large fistfuls of the snow he’s working with, and with just a slight lift of his left eyebrow, he warns her to run.

She does.

And not five strides into the laborious dash across the sheet of snow, she’s knocked forward as a snowball pelts her in the back with a sharp thud. Assuming he needs time to reload, she reaches down and scoops up enough snow to roll into a ball and twists around, hurling one in the Doctor’s general direction. He covers his face with his arm, but the ball hits him squarely in the chest with a crunch and an “oof!”

His next pitch misses, as a flash of white soars above her head just as she crouches down to pick up more snow (if she’d been standing, she’s fairly certain it would’ve hit her in the face). Scooping as much snow as she can into both fists, she hurls them both towards him as hard as she can just as he’s winding back his arm for another volley. One grazes his shoulder, and the other smacks his thigh before plopping to the snow, and she takes off running to her right. Zigzags as she goes, trying to make herself a more difficult target.

Trying to imitate the way birds swoop down to grab fish out of the water, she bends down mid-stride to try to scoop some snow without slowing down, but just as she does another of the Doctor’s larger, compacted snowballs strikes her in the hip. It’s just enough leverage to throw her left foot out of balance. She tries to regain her footing with the next stride but it’s no use, her center of gravity falters and she tumbles to the ground. The impact with the crunchy snow lets a little too much air out of her lungs, and the wetness of it seeps through her trousers until her bum is stinging from the cold, early tingles of numbness setting in. The fall hadn’t actually hurt, but she’d hoped she could come out of this without getting her pants wet.

“Oi!” she shouts at him, feigning more offense than she actually felt, and he runs even faster than he had when he was chasing her down to come to her aid. He skids to a halt towering over her, both hands extended down to help her to her feet, a thousand variants of ‘I’m sorry’ rushing out of his mouth.

Taking one of his hands, she fills the other with snow as surreptitiously as she can. He does most of the work to pull her to her feet, and while he’s asking if she’s all right, brushing snow off her trousers and jacket and generally quite unsuspecting, she pulls back his hood and stuffs her handful of snow behind his neck.

The Doctor leaps forward with a strangled gasp, hands flying up to his hood to try to brush off the freezing stuff.

“Haahh!!” he shrieks, running around and flinging tiny bits of snow from his hood. After a few moments of this (Rose doubled over with laughter through every bit of the spectacle) he leans forward and is able to rub the last of the melting ice from around his neck. Pulling his hood back over his hair, he turns to her with a glare colder than the snow itself.

“Think that’s funny, do you?”

A chill runs down her spine that’s, just this once, not from the sub-freezing temperature.

He can do that sometimes, bury every hint of his bubbly exterior, disinter the part Time Lord he’s got in him and properly scare her, if only for a second. She knows he’s not seriously that angry; he can’t be. But his face and his serious tone of voice can be very convincing sometimes.

Before she can run away, his hands grapple onto the side of her coat and retaliates in equal measure, shoving a large handful of snow inside of her hood, so thoroughly that some slips underneath her shirt and slides icily down her back. With a tiny scream, she hops around trying to rid herself of the frost, cursing the Doctor each and every time her feet propel her off the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him gathering another small pile into his hands with joyous, vengeful laughter.

“Okay! I surrender!” she cries. “No more!”

Fixing her hood over her head again, she drops the remaining snow in her left hand to the ground and holds up her hands palms-forward in a gesture of peace.

Snapping upright himself, the Doctor regards her for a moment, huge smile slowly fading as he sees her teeth chattering, and tosses the white from his gloves, too, before holding up his hands as well.

“Okay.” He smiles again, his discomfort from the cold finally beginning to show through as his jaw clenches. “Truce.”

She nods her head vigorously, and goes willingly into his embrace as he opens an arm for her.

“Let’s get you inside, hm?”

“Mmhm,” she agrees quickly. “Awh, we didn’t finish our snowman,” she adds somberly, glancing at the pathetically misshapen, incomplete pile of snowballs.

“Ah, don’t worry. We’ll finish it in the morning.”

“It looks so sad.”

Its bottom segment still looks ellipsoid, and its second segment has finger-shaped chunks taken out of it from where they started their snowball war. Its head is way too tiny and really, doesn’t have any semblance of a snowman at all.

The Doctor chuckles at the sight of it, and Rose echoes the sound. By the time they reach the stairs they’re both struggling to breathe through the fits of laughter at their failed endeavor.

\---

Once they’re in the welcoming warmth of their flat once more, they’re greeted with the sight of leftover food and dirty dishes on the dining table and throughout the kitchen. They turn the Christmas playlist back on while they team up to do the washing up, the Doctor doing the dishes while Rose packs up the leftover food and cleans off the table and countertops. It’s fairly routine – neither of them thinks it’s fair for one person to ever have to clean up everything on their own, so they share the burden whenever possible.

The Doctor tries to get Rose to sing a duet of ‘Baby, it’s Cold Outside’ with him, but she adamantly refuses.

“You know I can’t sing!”

“Well, neither can I!” he insists, just before going into the next verse, begging her to stay just a little longer.

Rose never knew the Doctor had so much Christmas spirit in him. Every time they’d celebrated the holiday before, he’d been excited, sure, at least on the surface, but all of the festive things they’d done had been her idea. And there was certainly never anything this domestic. She wouldn’t have dreamed he was even capable of it, back then, of badly signing romantic songs and helping her clean in _their_ kitchen.

Nostalgia swirls through her head as they finish up, and when the Doctor offers up the shower to her, she waves him on to go first, caught up in her thoughts. He’s always much faster, anyway. While he’s gone, Rose improvises a plan to shake off thoughts of the Time Lord, eternally lonely in a distant world beyond the void, a world she used to call home.

She digs out the cinnamon apple candle from their room that she had yet to use, setting it in the center of the dining table and lighting it. She plugs in the lights on the tree and the bookcase, and by the time the aroma of spiced cider tickles her nose, the Doctor emerges from the hall. His wildly towel-dried hair sticks out in every direction, and he’s wearing his plaid red pyjama bottoms and a simple white t-shirt, his newly repaired specs on and a stack of papers under one arm.

“All yours,” he announces quietly as he collapses down onto the couch.

She’s too caught up staring at him to move. He should know by now the messy hair looks always gets her.

“Rose?”

“Hmm?” she shakes her head.

“Aren’t you gonna shower?”

“Yep.” She smiles to herself as she heads for the hallway, resolving quickly and quietly to herself how they’re going to spend the rest of the evening.

\---

She leaves her hair wet, slipping on her warmest sweats, thick socks, and a t-shirt, forgoes the bra, and bundles up a few blankets from their room in her arms before she heads out.

The Doctor is hunched over an exam at the top of the thick stack of papers, reading something intently, fists on his temples and a purple pen in his mouth (he thinks too much red ink damages students’ self-esteem), not even sparing her a glance as she walks in front of him.

“How’re they doing on the exam, then?” she asks as she spreads the blankets on the floor next to the tree.

“Mmhm,” he mumbles.

She sighs, knowing he hadn’t even heard her question.

He’s never been good at multitasking.

She crumples down onto the first blanket and pulls the second one over herself, laying flat on her back for the best view of the tree. He’ll answer her properly when he’s at a good pausing point. For a few moments, she’s entranced by the slowly flashing multicolored lights hugging the tree, and the impressive assortment of TARDIS blue baubles they’d been able to find. (To be fair, though, two weekends ago they basically scoured trough every craft store in Britain for any and all shapes and designs in a close enough shade). The few presents they’ve gotten each other are arranged neatly beneath the lowest branches, only a few days until Christmas now.

She hasn’t really had the chance to just sit back and enjoy the work they’d put into decorating the tree since they’d put it up. It’s remarkably peaceful, watching the individual lights slowly flicker on and off amidst the blues and greens of the tree; especially after the last few weeks she’s had. The combination of the woodsy pine smell of the tree and the warm pie-like scent of the candle, and the mesmerizing synchrony of rainbow lights on the tree makes her about ready to close her eyes for the night.

“How many times did I go over molecular orbital theory in lecture…” the Doctor mutters, and she hears him uncap his pen and begin to scratch writing across paper at breakneck speed. “I told him to come in to my office for help, too. I told him…”

“Doing poorly, then?” she asks, thinking he sounds ready to talk.

“Well,” he pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “Overall, no. It’s just this one student I’m worried won’t pass the course. The average so far is an eighty-five.” She knows he did that math in his head in the three-second pause he took.

“Don’t you want to sit up here on the couch with me?” he asks. She tilts her head back at a very uncomfortable angle until she can see his face, his eyes wide and expectant.

“Don’t you want to lay here on the floor with me?” she counters, patting the empty half of blanket next to her.

He hums thoughtfully, a hint of a smile on his lips.

Scribbling a couple more sentences onto the exam in his lap, he sets it in the stack on the end table and swipes off his glasses. He hops off the couch to join her.

“Wait, turn the lights off!” she says just as he’s about to sit down.

With a dramatic sigh, he turns around and trudges to the switch next to the front door. The darkness that swathes the flat makes the tree even brighter and lovelier than before.

Folding his body down onto his half of the blanket, he snuggles up to her and props his head under his arm to admire the tree with her. She lets her head loll onto his shoulder, and as they lie in a hushed stillness beneath the luminous lights, her mind can’t help but wander back to stars and things they’ve lost.

“Do you still miss the TARDIS?” she asks. She can feel his head turn to look at her, but she keeps her gaze fixed on one bauble in particular, on a low bough just above their feet, a deep, glittery orb painted with golden swirls.

“Yeah,” he admits quietly.

She’s glad he’s being honest, and it was stupid to think even for a second that he would ever say no, but it still stings to hear it, for some reason. They’re both quiet for several uncomfortable moments, muscles tenser and breathing shallower than before.

“Wish I could get us one of those for Christmas.” She knows it won’t help, but she wants him to know that if there were anything she could do to get them back in the stars, she would do it.

He doesn’t respond, though. She hears him swallow, and then he’s silent for so long that she’s afraid she’s hurt him somehow. She’s about to muster up the courage to look at his face, when he finally speaks up.

“You still want to go to Italy soon?”

Her face scrunches up in confusion, and when she turns onto her elbow to face him, his eyebrows are just as low over his eyes as she expected, a subtle clench in his jaw.

“You’re changin’ the subject,” she accuses, unable to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

“Yes.”

She doesn’t expect such a transparent answer.

They never talk about this, though. They’ve both been too stifled by fear of offending each other to bring it up, since the first week they were here and it was all they _ever_ talked about. They take regular vacations outside the country and offer daily reassurances of their affection, but going back to the days of tears and anger isn’t something either of them wants to do. But she wants to know how he’s really feeling. Eventually, it’ll come out whether he wants it to or not, and if they wait that long, it’ll probably be in the form of a heated and emotional argument.

“C’mon, talk to me. Please.”

With a soft but rumbling groan in his chest, he turns onto his side, propping himself on his elbow to mirror her position. Half of his face is shadowed, the other half reflecting the dancing rainbow of lights above them, and his dark eyes look worried.

“It’s been difficult,” he admits reluctantly. Slowly. And he leaves it at that. Makes her keep prodding him for what’s hurting.

“D’you want to travel more? We could try for every weekend, like I said…”

“It’s not that.” He shakes his head. “It’s… in here.” He taps his temple with two fingers. She doesn’t probe again, because she can see the gears turning in his head, thinking of the best way to explain as he just stares down at the fabric of the blanket between them.

“Severing a telepathic connection is… painful.”

Words completely fail her. This is one thing she can’t fix. She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. She wants to cry for him, because as much as she misses the TARDIS on occasion, losing only the space travel and quirky gadgets must be nothing compared to the emotional and mental loss impacting him every day.

“I’m so sorry, Doctor.” Feeling around for his hand on the blanket, she takes it in one of hers and squeezes hard.

“Don’t apologize.” He squeezes back firmly.

“But I –”

“Don’t dwell on this. Please. I never brought this up because I don’t want you to think –”

A pause. He’s troubled, taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

“I’ve been living without the TARDIS for almost half a year now. And it’s hard, sometimes. I’ll admit that. But… trust me when I say this, Rose.” He brings their linked hands up to her face and strokes the back of his hand down her cheek. “It doesn’t come close to what it was like to live without you.”

Tears prick behind her eyes and an intense ache flares behind her ribs, filling her heart to bursting but creating an emptiness too, that makes it suddenly impossible to breathe, a hollow that can only be filled by him. More of him.

Rather than wrestle with inadequate words, she pushes forward to kiss him. It’s not the gentle kiss she’d normally try to seduce him with – it’s hard and desperate and demanding – but he welcomes it. She pushes him down to the blanket but he pulls her on top of him; she grabs his face in both hands and he wraps his hands around her to hold her tight against him. Their mutual possessiveness and urgency flows through their hazy emotional connection until an unmistakable single syllable lingers between them: _mine_.

She shifts her hands to tangle in his hair, and it’s so soft, pliant around her fingers and slightly damp from his shower, its crisp alpine scent filling her nose when she finally manages to breathe.

A kiss from her Doctor has always been beautifully immersive. His mouth is gentle but insistent, lips soft and full against hers, tongue slow and curious. He’s thorough, not pushing for more until he tastes her first moan in his mouth, and then he always answers with a deeper moan of his own, the kind she can feel through his chest. Patient as his hands explore every dip and curve of her body, light touches of palms and fingertips leaving warm shivers in their leisurely path.

Tugging at the hem of her baggy shirt, he asks permission to touch more. She braces herself on her knees on either side of him and lets him pull off the garment, and he gathers her breasts in his hands as she lowers herself down to claim his mouth again. He kneads softly with his palms as she takes his bottom lip between her teeth, sucking it lightly into her and _blimey_ it tastes good.

His thumbs press in delicate rings around her nipples and she cries out, breaking the kiss with a wet smack. Using the opportunity to catch her off guard, he finds his favorite spot where her neck meets her shoulder, teasing with his tongue then tugging at the skin with his teeth, his thumbs still tracing light circles. She calls out his name in a hoarse whisper, feeling like she might come just from this (they haven’t shagged since Sunday morning). The Doctor, of course, muffles a groan against her neck at the sound.

If there’s one thing that always turns him on, it’s hearing her say his name like that. Particularly when he’s kissing or touching her, or both, like he’s doing now, but that’s not a requirement. (She’s tested her theory in otherwise non-conducive conditions – on the phone, while he was engrossed in a history documentary, when they both had colds… it gets him randy without fail.) She might have expected it, if she’d ever given it enough thought before they entered into a physical relationship. He’s very fond of his self-given name, and has a weird thing about pronunciation, often repeating words or saying them in slow motion with different intonations.

The point is: if he wasn’t already hard, he certainly must be now.

Fueled with new enthusiasm, he steadies his hands on her hips and rolls them over, situating himself between her legs easily (and there he is, quite solid against her thigh). His mouth seals over hers as he pushes her into the blanket beneath them, grinding against her with slow, subtle motions to tell her he’s not rushing this.

Tonight though, she wishes he would.

“Touch me,” she rushes out between ravenous kisses.

His mouth pulls away from hers and there’s scandalized shock on his face.

“Little impatient tonight?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Been thinking about you all week.” She fidgets beneath him, trying to recreate the friction he kindled before (Sunday was frankly just too many days ago).

“Well,” he preens, pouting his lower lip and shrugging like he’s too modest to believe her (he isn’t). “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

He eases his weight off her, and kisses a trail down her chest and stomach, lighting little fires under her skin with the tip of his tongue. He waits until she’s squirming beneath him before he hooks his fingers around her pyjamas and knickers, and she lifts her hips so he can slide them down her legs in one go. She kicks them off her ankles and he bows his head between her thighs, his tongue delving between her folds with no pretense of teasing.

She cries out with relief as he brushes over her clit. He’s so brilliant with his mouth, has been since the first time. That’s no surprise either, he’s been licking things since this incarnation glowed to life, and he’s got an extraordinary ability to focus on intricate tasks for extended periods that makes him the perfect man for the job. It’s just a bonus that happens to enjoy doing it as much as he does. Everything just feels warm and soft and wet and _so good_ it’s something her imagination can never recreate accurately. His lips caress with even more care than he uses with her mouth, his tongue is attentive and determined but it’s gentle, doesn’t push too hard.

His eyes are closed in concentration, the way he moves is almost professional, and his hair is already so mussed up and adorable and sexy she can’t watch him anymore. She props her legs on his back, heels resting between his shoulder blades, runs her fingers through his hair and tries to hold on a little longer. Of course, touching his hair was a bad idea. The soft, smooth texture of it begs to be tugged, and she does, fingers coursing through the thick strands back and forth until it feels like it’s coming alive.

Her nails run along his scalp and he moans, deep vibration against her center, and that’s really all it takes. She urges him on with a quiet chant of his name, his mouth shifts just the right way, and the tensed coil in her core finally springs loose and she comes, thrusting up into his mouth and tugging him in closer by a generous fistful of his hair. He helps her through it slowly; lifting every deep and lingering wave of residual pleasure to its apex with his tongue, before he pulls away.

“That was quick,” he teases, a huge, rather wet smile on those magical lips as he climbs forward to lie down next to her again.

She pulls him in for a bruising kiss, snogging him so thoroughly that he’s properly breathless when she releases him.

“Take this off,” she commands, tugging on the front of his shirt.

He obeys immediately, tossing the shirt on the floor behind them.

“And these,” she says, biting her lip as she slips a few fingers under the waistband of his pyjamas.

It takes a bit of wriggling and readjustment, but he gets those off too, and he accidentally kicks a branch of the tree as he kicks them off. They both gasp as it sways precariously for a few moments, but it rights itself and wobbles a little until it’s still again, reaching ambitiously for the ceiling. She looks down and sees he’s already bared and reporting for duty.

“No pants tonight?”

“Thought you seemed randy earlier.” His smile is so, so arrogant.

Sometimes, the man has no humility. She wanted to build up his confidence in bed at the start, but she might have overdone it.

“Git.”

“You love it.”

“Shut up.” She punches him lightly in the arm.

“You love _me_.”

“I do.”

That’s one thing she’ll never, as long as she lives, tease him about.

She kisses him again, slower and softer, wraps her arms around his neck and scoots her naked body against his. He cups one large hand on her bum, smoothing his palm over her skin so until she shivers, then squeezes lightly until she bucks forward.

She’s been completely at his mercy thus far, and wants to take control. Pushing him down until his back thuds against their makeshift pallet, she climbs on top of him. He’s very agreeable, lying back without a fuss and even putting his hands up until she tells him what to do. Leaning forward, she peppers kisses over his chest and up along his collarbone, and he tilts his head back with an encouraging hum to give her whatever access she wants. She circles her tongue around the little brown blemish on his throat, and grazes her teeth beneath his ear and under his jaw and he thrusts up helplessly.

She takes mercy on him, sitting up and scooting back so she can join them together.

He whispers in Gallifreyan as she sinks down onto him, hard and hot and waiting, slowly stretching and filling her. She recognizes the phrase now; he’s explained enough of his bedroom talk that she doesn’t need the translation that follows, but he always provides it anyway. “Beautiful,” he groans. She’s already so wet that she doesn’t need long to adjust, and she’s lifts her hips and rocks up and down, slow, deliberate thrusts that take him deep inside her.

He’s a beautiful sight, himself, his hair completely out of control from her own doing, his head thrown back, exposing the pale column of his throat (she wishes she could bite it without stopping), lips parted and eyes closed in pleasure. Pink and green and blue shadows dance across his face and chest, and she can’t help giggling at the light show on his skin.

“What?” he asks, looking up at her, suddenly alarmed.

“You’re festive.”

“So’re you.” He laughs a little, but it’s swallowed by another moan as she dips down a little harder and starts to scratch her nails on his sternum.

“Ah… faster,” he pleads, his hands grabbing her arse and guiding her movements faster, pulling her down on each stroke and thrusting up to meet her. “I’m really close, are you…” he searches her eyes frantically for an affirmative.

When she doesn’t answer, he moves one of his hands to reach down to where they’re joined, his fingers lightly brushing over her clit, hovering there so she rubs against them with every downward movement.

“Come on,” he begs her. His fingertips just there are perfect, but she needs a little longer, isn’t ready for him to finish yet. He should have known though, touching her is always a detriment to his stamina. He calls out her name and grunts hard, bucking his hips up one final time before he goes rigid, pulsing inside her with a string of unintelligible words in his native tongue.

She stills her hips once his muscles relax and he starts to soften inside her, leaning down to capture his lips. His kisses are predictably sloppy and lazy after he comes.

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” he says as she dismounts, rubbing his hands down his face in frustration. “Looks like I didn’t last very long, either.”

“It’s okay,” she insists as she rummages around for her shirt and uses it to clean them both up a little. “I had a go already.” She smiles, okay with calling it a night, because she can’t hold him to a double standard when she hardly lasted a few minutes, herself. She really expected him to finish early, once he got going.

She lies down next to him, this time pulling the crumpled second blanket over them both, and cuddles into his chest.

“Are you sure? Cause if you want another, I can definitely…” he trails off suggestively, nodding in a generally southward direction.

“Mmm, well…” She bites her lip. She knows he’s always more than willing to please her in other ways, on the occasions he finishes too soon. Never let it be said he’s a selfish lover. And truth be told, she only needs a couple minutes more to come again, and she’d been rather looking forward to it…

“If you want to…” she hedges, not wanting to coerce him.

It’s all he needs to hear before he guides a hand between her legs.

He slips a few fingers into her wet heat (she really can’t count right now) and she hooks her leg around his hip, crying out with relief at being filled again. He sets up a slow rhythm thrusting in and out, fingertips massaging deep inside her, and she rocks her hips to meet his movements, closing her eyes and pretending she’s still riding his length. His thumb brushes over her clit and she gasps out his name.

“That’s it,” he murmurs.

“More,” she whispers, hoping he understands.

He promptly obeys, picking up his pace, moving his thumb in constant, quick little circles over her clit until she’s panting for release.

His hand never faltering from its task, he readjusts himself so he can lower his mouth to her breast, pulling a tender peak between his teeth, sucking gently and swiping with his tongue. The bright pulse of pleasure from his mouth heightens the slow crescendo building already building to a sharp apex and she comes apart.

His name is on her lips with filthy curses and he’s moaning, too, experiencing her climax vicariously as her walls spasm around his fingers and her body trembles around his (and probably very pleased that he was successful again so soon).

When she goes still, he lifts his head and presses a tender kiss to her lips, his other hand cradling her jaw.

“Have I made it up to you?” he whispers, gently withdrawing his hand and wrapping his arm around her.

“Mmm,” she breathes sleepily, still intoxicated with the warm and fuzzy floating feeling of an orgasm. She snuggles up closer to him and presses a kiss to his collarbone. “Yes.”

They’re silent for a few moments, their gaze falling back to the glowing fairy lights on the tree.

“Should we go to our bed?” he asks.

“Do you want to?”

“Not really.”

“Me either. I’m comfy right here.”

“Good.”

She smiles widely against his shoulder.

She starts to drift off to sleep, and can hear the Doctor’s breathing even out, too, when she remembers the candle.

“Oh, but I didn’t blow out the candle.” She rubs her eyes and gathers all her inner strength to overcome the lethargy and sit up.

“Wait, wait, I’ve got it!” The Doctor stills her with his arm and sits up and reaches down by the tree for his pyjamas, scooping them up and fishing in the pockets until he pulls out the sonic.

“Why d’you need the sonic in your pyjamas?”

“Because, Rose, you never know when you may need a screwdriver.” He points the blue light at the candle on the dining table, and within a few seconds of high-pitched whirring it snuffs out. She doesn’t even want to ask what type of setting that is. “See? Coming in handy, now, isn’t it?” He nods, twirling it between a few fingers as he lies back down. Typical Doctor.

She just shakes her head and nestles in against his chest.

“Thanks, love.”

“Anytime.”

“You still want to finish our ugly snowman tomorrow?” Her eyes have already drifted closed again.

“Sounds perfect.”

The lights still flashing behind her eyelids, the warmth under their shared blanket, and the smell of soap and sex on his skin is making her fade fast.

“I never want to live without you again, either,” she murmurs.

He only responds by squeezing her tighter against him.

“Wouldn’t trade you for anything,” she adds.

“Thanks very much.”

“’m serious.”

“I know. So was I.”

“Love you,” she whispers, too drowsy to say much else. As long as he knows that, the rest can wait until morning.

“Love you, too.”

The words drift through her ears like holiday bells, lingering in her mind, ringing softer and softer, lulling her to sleep. For too many Christmases, she couldn’t even allow herself to fantasize that he’d ever confess he loved her, let alone that he’d ever let go of his tenacious sense of cosmic responsibility enough to cook dinner and build a snowman together without it being a huge, dramatic, domestic deal because ‘a Time Lord couldn’t.’ For too many more, she sat alone by the fireplace in the sprawling Tyler mansion, staring at red stockings and wishing more than anything Father Christmas would bring her back to the man she loved.

But immortality and walls between universes won’t separate them anymore. As she drifts off to sleep snuggled up next to her Doctor, under a tree they picked out and decorated _together_ , she has a feeling this is going the be the best Christmas she’s ever had.


End file.
